Those of us who pay attention to local politics are gobsmacked by the new executive committee of the Livingston County GOP. There’s no other word that adequately describes the political whiplash that’s transformed the local party’s leadership roster from one full of well-known, well-connected, well-behaved Republicans who worked their way up the political chain to one with a lot of political newbies triggered by mask mandates and vaccinations, organized through social media, and fueled by misinformation.
This, dear reader, is not your Republican grandma’s executive committee. This is a whole new beast.
It’s interesting to contrast the change in direction of Livingston County’s Republican Party to that of neighboring Oakland County.
Once thoroughly red, Oakland County has steadily trended to the left and is now “reliably” blue. In response to the Blue Wave in Michigan, Oakland County’s Republicans decided that in order to have any hope of regaining control of their county, they need to become more moderate and business friendly and move toward the center. Here in Livingston County, the Republicans apparently looked at the election results, asked for volunteers to hold their beer, and doubled down in the culture wars by moving way, way, right.
How far right, you ask?
Leading the Republicans now is Jennifer Smith, famous for leading the local Moms For Liberty group (which came to be during mask mandates); getting in trouble with Facebook for her administration of the Moms For Liberty page; suing and then dropping the suit against the Brighton Area Schools District over the open meetings act and mask violations; and, about a year ago, threatening the Brighton school board.
“We’re coming for you. Take it as a threat. Call the FBI. I don’t care,” Smith shouted at the Nov. 22, 2021 meeting. “You’re all either going to be recalled or we’re all coming for you. That’s what’s happening.”
It’s hard for me to see how putting the most politically extreme and polarizing people in charge of a party in a community that is steadily moving toward the political center makes sense. Given the new makeup of the Livingston County Republican Party’s executive committee, I’d be doing a happy dance if I were a member of the local Democratic Party, especially in light of their political gains over the past few election cycles.
Now, you might say, “Hey, Livingston County is still firmly in Republican control,” and you’d be technically correct, but you need to look at the numbers over the past few years to see the trend. Livingston County is no longer red; in fact, in the 2022 gubernatorial election, there were only three Livingston County townships that remained solidly red:
SOURCE: UMichVoter
I wrote more about the historic gains Livingston County Democrats made here. The ONLY races in which Livingston County Republicans made any seeable gains were for school board, and in hindsight it seems a bit of a stretch to count the election results as “gains” when this is the very first time a political party has gotten involved in school board races. The question remains whether these same candidates would have won election had the local GOP kept its nose out of the race.
But that’s a discussion for a different day.
What I can say is that there’s a new crew in charge of the Livingston GOP, and the credit for creating this new crew has been claimed on social media by Bill Bolin, the senior pastor at FloodGate Renewal Church, which no one knew existed until it gained notoriety (and members) by staying open during the Covid shutdown. (Bolin’s name may be familiar if you follow the machinations of the Livingston County Board of Commissioners. You can read all about Commission Chair Wes Nakagiri’s messy and controversial appointment of Bolin to the board of the Huron Clinton Metroparks by clicking here.)
“Testimony time!” Bolin wrote in a post-election Facebook post. “Our church, FloodGate, has been distraught over the invasive, anti-family agenda that has been imposed on our children. Then there’s the attempts to confuse children about a myriad of issues, including gender.”
Bolin continued to say that he and his church decided to “do something about it”: “FloodGate fielded a passel of delegate candidates and offered support for conservative candidates.”
It sounds like that “passel of delegate candidates” just took over the local Republican Party.
He went on to talk about his happiness over the results of the Hartland Consolidated Schools board race, and then ended by saying this: “Friends, this is how you transform a nation. It begins locally at the ballot box. Let’s win this fight.”
And in the Livingston County Republican bubble, it appears they have.
Outgoing Chair Meghan Reckling announced in February 2022 that she would not seek a third consecutive term as LCRP chair. None of the other LCRP officers sought re-election. It had been rumored that Kristina Lyke would replace Reckling as chair, but according to the Livingston County Republican Convention website, Lyke wasn’t a dues-paying member of the party, so she was ineligible to run.
Instead, when the smoke cleared, it was Smith taking the reins of the newly minted Livingston County Republican Party.
I compiled lists of the local GOP Executive Committee members for the past few years; check out how much it has changed. I shaded in the names of those members of the committee who carried over from year-to-year:
And what’s even more interesting is that a third of the new executive committee members weren’t even eligible to run under the rules adopted by the Livingston Republican Party, which were simple: to run, you had to be a member of the party in good standing, and you had to be paying dues since July 31, 2022.
Which means that a third of the new members on the local GOP’s executive committee weren’t even members of the party prior to July 31, and now they are the party’s leadership.
Those members are:
Jessica Barefield – paid dues 9/22
Alisa Davis – paid dues 11/22
Adena Friend – paid dues 11/22
Ron Galard – paid dues 11/22
Janine Iyer – paid dues 8/22
Joe Laginess – paid dues 11/22
Madelyn Thomas – paid dues 11/22
Apparently there was a vote to change the rules of eligibility at the county convention, which made this takeover of the executive committee possible.
Which makes the choice of Jennifer Smith to lead the local party altogether understandable.
And it’s why I am sure Livingston County Democrats are celebrating what they expect to be a bountiful political new year.
